Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1887-05-20
Lansdowne's Evictions.

Whether Editor o. Brien will not hurt
the cause of the Irish patriots more than
he helps it, by his crusade against Lord
Lansdowne, in Canada, is an open ques-
ton. But his statements in regard to the
proceedings which that nobeman is tax
ing against his Irish tenants, if half true,
make out case of gross oppression and
unaccountable inhumanity, against him.
In his speech at Montreal Mr.. O'Brien
said;
Lord Lansdowne is laying waste an en-
tire stretch of country miles long as COM
pletely as if the angel of death knocked at
every cabin door in those valleys and de.
voted every man, woman and child to
destruction. AS soon as he will have OBJ
tanned his next batch of ejectment de-
crees, he will have made a clean sweep of
the property, and, except Lord Lans-
downe's own bailiffs and creatures, the
whole population will have been banlshed
and their homes will know them no more.
Mr.. O'Brien then quoted from reports
in the Dublin Freemdn'S Journal of the
evictions on Lord Lansdowne's estate
with headings such as northumberland
twenty-five people evicted," sixty per-
sons left homeless" and so on. He de
scrbed incidents attending some of the
evictions as follows:
lntlrm old women aged eighty and odd
years, whose lettering steps had to be
guided out of their little homesteads,
were put out in the pitiless storm of hail
and snow. The cold March blast blew
around them and the poor creatures cried
bitterly. Old men over ninety years of
age were told to clear out, The delicate
mother, with her babe only fortnight old
clasped in her arms, stood shivering out
side, while the emergency men" pitched
out her little belongings. The emergency
men, were there with sledge hammers,
crowbars, ladders, saws and hatchets to
pull down the house and smash the furnl-
ture. A miserable matched cottage into
which the rain poured through the roof,
occupied by tenant named Henry Null
hall, was entered by the sheriff On
chair near the fire was Door
old woman, who did not seem to
house which had sheltered her from her
childhood. 1t was raining at the time and
she was put ont on the roadside in the
pitiless storm. These are few typical
cases of the hundreds of evictlons that
have been going on on Lord Lansdowne's
Queens county estates. When the dis
pute arose the tenants owed only half a
years rent, after all the frightful losses of
the past seven years. One years rent
should be due before evictions can take
place, and unworthy attempts have been
made to make the Canadian people under
sldnu lndu one year rent WIS uue. Inc
second half years rent said to be due, but
which was not, was mere lawyers
myth. a legal fiction known as "the hang
ing gale" The Luggacurran tenants
were honest, peaceful and inoffensive. So
lar as crime is concerned, the locality
is simply stainless. During these bar
barous evictions not blow was struck,
not a stone flung, and what have these
people ever done that they should deserve
TO be robbed of home and land Simply
sought an abatement in their rents, abate
ments less than Earl Cowper's Royal
Commissiou-a landlord commission ap-
pointed by Tory Government-declared
to he equitable; less even than the Land
Commission Courts are granting to neigh
boring estates and finally, reductions to
which Lord LansdOwne's own arbitrator
Mr.. Denning, gave his assent and APPROX
al in black and white